Submissions

Author Guidelines

General Guidelines for Submission of New Articles

The Kerygma journal accepts both national and international articles for publication in a continuous flow format. Articles should be specifically prepared by doctors or doctoral students affiliated with programs in Theology and Religious Studies. Similar areas are also included within the scope of human sciences and social and applied sciences, provided that the main subject shows theological or religious concern. The journal also accepts research carried out by non-doctors as long as they accompany a co-authorship with a doctoral or doctoral degree.

For publication, articles must be submitted exclusively through the online Open Journal System (OJS) on the journal's portal. This requires registration and, the creation of a login and password. Documents should preferably be submitted in .doc or .docx (Microsoft Word) formats. Texts in any other formats, such as .pdf, for example, will not be accepted. It is advised that they do not exceed 2MB.

The text must be unpublished and not infringe upon third-party rights. Simultaneous submission to other journals is not permitted. Exceptions should be justified in the "comments to the editor" section. The text or parts of it (excluding theses and dissertations) should not have been previously published, even in another language. It can be written in Portuguese, Spanish, or English. Regardless of the language chosen, it must strive for clarity, fluidity, objectivity, depth, and other virtues of academic language. You should also pay attention to the grammar rules of your respective language.

Preferably, the text sent must have a single authorship. However, the maximum participation of three authors is allowed. In this case, at least one of them must correspond to the required author qualifications profile. Once the full text is submitted, it's not possible to add a new co-author beyond those already informed in the platform.

The text submitted to Kerygma must not present the authors' names and their respective biographies. Such information must be updated in the “user profile”, which remains editable during the submission process. Any biographical or authorship information in the submitted text will be disregarded by the editor, who will be attentive exclusively to the data informed on the platform. For more guidance on making an anonymous document, see the Tutorial for Authors.

Roughly speaking, an “author” is understood as a person who contributes directly and substantially to the construction of the research and its results. Provision of financial resources, infrastructure, or guidance does not constitute co-authorship. The author and co-author must agree with the published content, have a personal email address, and inform their respective ORCIDs on the journal's platform. In case of authorship dispute, an email must be sent to the editor alleging editorial misconduct (rodrigo.follis@unasp.edu.br and flavio.prestes@ucb.org.br).

The layout of the submitted document should be on A4 paper with top and left margins of 3 cm and bottom and right margins of 2 cm. Use Calibri font, size 12 pt, with 1.5 line spacing, 1.5 cm indentation in the first line of paragraphs, and justified alignment. In the case of a scientific article, the text must cover between a minimum of 10 pages and a maximum of 25 pages, considering, in all cases, images, tables, and bibliographical references. Exceptional cases must be communicated in “comments to the editor”.

The references used must appear in the body of the text, between parentheses, in accordance with the ABNT norms defined in these guidelines, containing author, date, and page. Example: (Cardenal, 2011, p. 22). Footnotes should only be added as necessary comments to the argument of the text and should not be extensive. They can also be used as a reference or as a list of internet sources in unpublished documents following scientific criteria (the latter should not be included in the bibliographic references). An article with excessive footnotes may be rejected by the editor or may be altered during the layout process. Under no circumstances should the following Latin expressions be used: opus citatum/ opere citato/ op. cit./ ibidem/ ibid./ idem/ id./ loco citato/ loc. cit.

The submitted text will be forwarded to the reviewers for the evaluation process (Double Blind Peer Review). The editor coordinates the information exchanged between authors and reviewers, making the final decision on the material submitted based on the recommendations. When rejected, the article is returned with the editor's justification; when accepted, it undergoes revision, editing, and finally, publication. The results are expressed as: "Accepted," "Accepted with revisions," and "Not accepted."

To be accepted, the work must adhere to the following basic criteria: (1) Relevance to the fields of Theology and Religious Sciences; (2) The presentation of theoretical consistency and rigor; (3) Clear alignment with its main objective; (4) Thorough theoretical-methodological foundation, analysis, and conclusion; (5) An updated and pertinent bibliography on the topic; (6) Demonstrating originality and contribution to the mentioned fields; and (7) Adherence to academic language and technical formatting standards.

In summary, during the submission process, authors are required to ensure compliance with the summarized basic guidelines below. Any submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will be returned before the Peer Review process:

1. Be aware of ethical conditions involving the publication of academic work before submitting the text (see, for example, FAPESP; COPE; ICMJE);
2. Remove any indication of authorship or biography from the submitted text, and keep author information updated in the platform;
3. Remember to add co-authorship information in the electronic form using the "include author" button, if necessary. Similar to the primary author, co-authors should include updated biographical information, qualifications, institutional affiliation, and ORCID link;
4. Follow the required academic style and formatting standards (ABNT) as per the author guidelines, and adhere to all editorial norms and policies available on the journal's website.

Guidelines for the pre-text:

Before the article's body, it should follow this formatting structure for the first page:

1. Title and subtitle of the article in its original language, centered, in uppercase, bold, Calibri font, size 14 pt;
2. Translation of the title and subtitle of the article into English, centered, uppercase, bold, Calibri font, size 12 pt. If the original language is English, the second title should appear in Portuguese as the secondary language. Conversely, if the original language is Spanish, the second title remains in English;
3. Abstract of 100-250 words, Calibri font, single spacing, size 11 pt, following the general presentation guidelines outlined in NBR 10520 of 2023 by ABNT: it should include the article's objective, methodology or approach used, collected data, and a brief summary of the obtained results. Generally, abstracts do not contain direct quotations or bibliographic references. The abstract should also have an English version (abstract) following the same formatting guidelines. It should appear in single spacing after the second title;
4. Three to five keywords that represent the article's content. They should also have their English equivalents (keywords). Authors must ensure the accuracy of terminology in their translation to English (or another language) to match technical terms used in the foreign language for their field. For example, when producing these translations, authors should ensure the correct translation of terms like "ciência da religião" to "study of religion," "ciências da religião" to "religious studies." The term "science of religion" used to be common but might be less understood by native English speakers now. Keywords should appear in single spacing after the abstract or abstract and should be separated by periods.

In general, articles should not contain epigraphs. Even if accepted by reviewers, manuscripts with epigraphs will be edited to remove them during the editorial process for publication. Additionally, articles submitted in a different format that does not conform to submission standards will be returned to authors for revision.

If there are any doubts about formatting, it is advisable to contact the editors (rodrigo.follis@unasp.edu.br and flavio.prestes@ucb.org.br).

Guidelines for the body of the text

As mentioned earlier, the scientific article should span between 10-25 pages. The maximum number of pages is calculated by considering images, tables, bibliographic references, and other possible textual elements. Exceptional cases should be communicated to Kerygma through the "comments to the editor" section.

Authors who submit texts with special characteristics (images, specific fonts, etc.) can include such elements in the Word document as long as they are legible and of good quality (for images, the recommended minimum resolution is 300 dpi). It is recommended that texts in special characters be transliterated as per the Author's Tutorial (such as Hebrew and Greek) unless there are exceptional cases for studying the original language (preferably using fonts from the Word document itself). Authors should also be aware that using certain images might require copyright permissions. Furthermore, tables, graphs, charts, and figures should follow the formatting guidelines outlined in NBR 10520 de 2023 da ABNT. All these elements should be limited to the minimum necessary and numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals.

The content of the developed text should be divided into topics and, when necessary, subtopics. All should be unnumbered, in bold, without first-line indentation. These topics are at the discretion of the author and must include an introduction and conclude with final considerations and a list of bibliographic references.

In the body of the text, direct quotations should be up to 3 (three) lines long and enclosed in quotation marks ("), fitting the natural paragraph configuration. Longer quotations exceeding 3 (three) lines should be formatted as block paragraphs: a 4 cm left indent, no first-line indentation, single line spacing, automatic spacing between paragraphs, font size 11 pt, and without quotation marks. All direct quotations should be in the same language as the article; this implies that in cases where the author translates the quote, it is necessary to add the information "tradução livre" (free translation) in the bibliographic citation. Direct quotations should also have a footnote indicating the original text (in quotation marks). Example:

(Cardenal, 2011, p. 50, free translation)¹.

¹Original text: "Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book."

When direct quotations contain "emphasis" (i.e., graphical emphasis), it should be indicated whether this emphasis is original from the source/author or added by the article authors. In both cases, this information should appear in parentheses in the reference. Example: (Cardenal, 2011, p. 56, author's emphasis) or (Cardenal, 2011, p. 67, emphasis added). Graphical emphasis should be in italics (never underlined or bold) and should be used sparingly. If accepted, articles with paragraphs containing excessive emphasis might be typeset without these emphases, at the editors' discretion.

To cite open-ended questionnaires or interviews, authors should follow this format: (Last Name, personal interview, date). Pseudonyms can be used to ensure anonymity: (Interviewee 1, personal interview, 2019). All should include the information "personal interview” in the citation. In such cases, it is not necessary to include the interview in the list of bibliographic references.

In situations where there are terms in Portuguese that translate expressions in a foreign language, authors should give preference to terminology in Portuguese: instead of per se, “por si”; rather than prima facie, “at first sight,” etc. Exceptions are allowed for direct quotes. In addition, names of religions must occur in lowercase letters, such as catholicism, islam, spiritualism, adventism, buddhism, etc. The same should occur with other terms from the religious vocabulary: church, assembly, mosque, parish, salvation, grace, priest, babalorixá, ebó, etc.

In summary, the mandatory requirements for developing the text are as follows:

1. Span between 10-25 pages for articles;
2. Structure the text into four main sections: introduction, main body, final considerations, and bibliographic references;
3. Prefer transliteration for texts with special characters. When necessary, submit such characters as supplementary documents in .ttf format;
4. Modestly use images and illustrations, which, if needed, should be submitted as supplementary documents in .jpg format with a resolution of 300 dpi;
5. Divide the main text into unnumbered topic sections (or subtopics) in bold, without first-line indentation;
6. Present direct quotations in the main text when under 3 (three) lines and format them as block quotations if exceeding this length (4 cm left indent, no first-line indentation, single line spacing, automatic spacing between paragraphs, font size 11 pt, without quotation marks);
7. Use textual emphasis in italics and indicate the source of emphasis: whether original from the author or added by the article authors;
8. Use translated direct quotations with the information that they were freely translated ("free translation"), followed by a footnote containing the original version of the quoted passage;
9. Give preference to terms in Portuguese that can be replaced by others, more technical, commonly cited in Latin or English;
10. Present terms from the religious vocabulary in lowercase, such as "church," "adventism," "grace," etc.

Guidelines for post-text

At the end of the article, the list of bibliographic references should be prepared in Calibri, font size 12 pt, single line spacing, left alignment, automatic spacing between paragraphs, and a left-indent structure. The works listed in this section (books, articles, theses, dissertations, etc.) should have been effectively used in the development of the work and cited in the main text. Unreferenced material will automatically be removed from the list during the editing process.

The bibliography should be listed following the ABNT standards (according to NBR 6029 from ABNT) and should adhere to the standard model exemplified below for basic occurrences of bibliography (books, book chapters, articles, theses, and dissertations):

For books:

LAST NAME, author's initials. Title: Subtitle. Location: Publisher, year.

Examples:

PEVERINI, H. J. En las huellas de la providencia. Argentina: Asociación Casa Editora Sudamericana, 1988.

SCHWARZ, R.; GREENLEAF, F. Portadores de luz: História da Igreja Adventista do Sétimo Dia. 2. ed. Engenheiro Coelho: Unaspress, 2016.

For book chapters:

LAST NAME, initials of the author(s). Title: Subtitle. In: LAST NAME, initials of organizer(s) or editor(s). Title: Subtitle. City: Publisher, year, chapter pages.

Examples:

TIMM, A. R. Ellen G. White como expositora bíblica: Panorama histórico e avaliações críticas. In: ZUKOWISKI, J. C.; SUÁREZ, A. S.; SIQUEIRA, R. W. (Orgs.). Ellen G. White: Seu impacto hoje. Engenheiro Coelho: Unaspress, 2017, p. 175-205.

DONKOR, K. Quem decidiu que livros seriam incluídos na Bíblia? In: PFANDL, G. (Org.). Interpretando as Escrituras: Descubra o sentido dos textos mais difíceis da Bíblia. Tatuí: Casa Publicadora Brasileira, 2015, p. 29-33.

For scientific articles:

LAST NAME, initials of the author(s). Title: Subtitle. Journal name, volume, number, article pages, year.

Examples:

HAMSTRA, D. J. Um julgamento de Deus? Uma história moral das campanhas eleitorais de 2016 para a presidência dos Estados Unidos. Kerygma, v. 14, n. 2, p. 55-75, 2019.

OLUIKPE, I. M; PAPAIOANNOU, K. Israel as the People of the Covenant and Dispensationalism: A Biblical Evaluation. Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, v.28, n. 2, p. 50-77, 2017.

For theses, dissertations, or monographs:

LAST NAME, initials of the author(s). Title: Subtitle. Number of pages. Type of work (grade and area). Teaching unit, Institution, Place, Year.

Examples:

JESUS, C. A. F. de. Senaqueribe em Judá: Uma análise das fontes bíblicas e extrabíblicas. 202f. Dissertation (Master in Jewish Studies). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2015.

COSTA, M. O. da. Ciência da Religião aplicada como o terceiro ramo da Religionswissenschaft: História, análises e propostas de atuação profissional. 253f. Thesis (Doctorate in Study of Religion). Faculdade de Ciências Sociais, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2019.

Additional Guidelines

It is the responsibility of each author to adhere to research ethics standards involving human subjects, if applicable. This declaration should be provided at the time of article submission in a specific field within the platform.

Authors are advised to review the formatting guidelines outlined in the Author Guidelines before submitting their work. This includes font size, footnotes, images, tables, transliterations, citations, bibliographic references, and other guidelines already presented. It is essential for authors to ensure consistency between the authors mentioned in the main text and those listed in the bibliography.

All statements, opinions, arguments, and concepts expressed in the articles are the strict responsibility of the authors.